Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Call Center Scheduling New Year's Resolutions
For most, the beginning of a New Year is the perfect time to reflect on the accomplishments of the last 12 months and set goals that will define the next 12. This is as true for a call centers as it is for an individual, and as your agents start to filter back in from the holidays it’s important to take a look at where you’ve been and where you want to go. Here are three New Year’s resolutions that you can implement in your call center management strategy to increase your effectiveness in 2012.
1. Invest more in your agents:
You agents are more than just the bodies that fill your seats, they’re the heart of the team. As such, this year you should resolve to take their needs into consideration more. Work with your agents to make schedules that fit around their unique needs. If you’re having adherence issues, instead of using negative reinforcement, try strategies that offer rewards for tighter schedule adherence, You can reward the most effective agents with things like first dibs on more desirable time slots or extra break time.
2. Be better prepared:
Even if you’re scheduling with spreadsheets you know that there are seasonal volume peaks that accompany annual cycles that you need to have x amount of staff on hand to cover the extra calls. Think of how efficient your call center would be if you could identify the peaks and valleys of volume on a day-to-day basis. You can accomplish this with any good workforce management software suite and in doing so, you’ll be able to cut spending on idle agents, and improve your overall customer experience. Make sure that the management software you chose has a forecasting option, and you’ll be able to address these issues much more effectively.
3. Keep a better eye on your call center:
There are a number of stats, and channels of information that you can be using to effectively adjust the strategy of your call center. Tracking metrics will allow you to see where your weaknesses lie, and effectively address them. Abandonment rates, call times, schedule adherence, each has its own story to tell, and offers you another hurdle to formulate a plan around. If you’re not tracking these stats, you need to start, and you need to take into consideration what they’re telling and act on it. It could be the difference between a mediocre call center and one that excels.
You might have you own set of challenges you hope to address in 2012, but this list should help you get started towards a more effective call center operation. Keep these things in mind, and hopefully you’ll be able to reap the benefits.
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Chris DiMarco is a Managing Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page. Follow him on Twitter (News - Alert) @cpdimarco.
Edited by Stefanie Mosca